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About Jeff Campbell

The first half of my life was spent searching.And after decades, I found myself in the last place I ever expected to be: A middle-of-the-road evangelical church. I had always been captivated by the person of Jesus. For a while, it was very good.Until it wasn't.A series of difficulties and challenges lead me into a pit of anxiety and depression. The folks within my community did the best they could with where they were at. But it was not helpful to me at that time.I began to deconstruct my faith. I heard some wise speakers talk about the importance of contemplative activities. I couldn't find much, though. So few of these thinkers were expressing much about how you actually do it. The few that did seemed awfully territorial about the whole affair, or to find out how to do it right, I would need to come up with money that I did not have. As it got more difficult to handle the depression and anxiety, this situation worsened. I could barely manage the every day details of life.An unlikely series of events landed me at a Rite of Passage retreat in the desert. Here, I encountered God again. I was exposed to meditation up close and personal. I was introduced to the idea that so many mystics saw past the differences between this faith tradition and that one.As I built my spiritual practice, I slowly got my life back. And I found myself with a living, rich, mature faith. Since that time, I have become passionate about supporting others in building their practice, regardless of financial means. I have done this through small groups, retreats, and the website https://faithingproject.com/

Author Updates

Background
This is not the first description of a Loving-Kindness meditation here at The Faith-ing Project. It was observed that the previous description though omitted a traditional and important element of the practice.
An important aspect of the traditional loving-kindness meditation is challenge to love people who we might have difficulties with. The description below includes this element.
The English translations of the precise sentences to

Background: The body scan is a well-loved mindfulness exercise. This is a practice which invites us to carefully survey the body and to explore how it is feeling. One of the objectives is to compare how the different body parts feel. Those parts of us that feel relaxed are contrasted with the places we feel tense.
It’s a powerful thing, to note what feels comfortable. Just as watching the example of someone performing well is often more helpful than

Background: These last few practices have been rooted in the experience that changes in my breath are not caused by “me” (whatever it is that I am!) Rather, it is the universe breathing in me.
Click here and here and here to see these practices or to read more background into this experience.
There are some who believe that there is something sacred in the precise words chosen for the mantra. This has not been my experience. Part of the vision of The Faith-in

Background
If you wanted to divide up all the spiritual exercises, all the contemplations, all the ways of approaching of mindfulness that have ever been, you could find one convenient dividing line around what they do with the breath.
Many practices begin by asking us to take charge of the breath. Generally speaking, these practices encourage us to slow down our breathing. There are lots of reasons that this is a good idea.
As discussed above, it may not be

Background: You might find this to be most effective after exercise 47. In some ways, it is a follow-up to that exercise.
Our every day assumption is that our consciousness (ego, mind) is in control of things like our breathing. The main evidence for this assumption is rooted in the idea that when I think “I am going to breathe slowly now.” I do, in fact, start to breathe slowly.
However, it is worth noticing a few things about this assumption. The firs

Background: Thinkers such as Ken Wilber have observed that it is somewhat arbitrary, the ways that we put importance on a single individual. We are made of millions of cells. The cells are arranged in tissues, the tissues are are arranged in organs. The organs are arranged in organ systems. The organ systems are arranged in organisms. The organisms are arranged in communities. The communities are arranged in ecosystems. All the ecosystems, when

This is from the Palm Sunday Email on the Lenten email exploration of the Cataphatic-Apophatic. If you would like to receive the last couple emails in this series, email otherjeffcampbell7@gmail.com
Palm Sunday is celebrated one week before Easter. It is a commemoration of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Today’s spiritual exercise combines elements of Lectio Divina (Sacred Reading) and visualization. This is a very cataphatic practice, depend

There is lots to be said about the two most obvious parts of the breath: The inhale, and the exhale.
The first is an act of bringing something that is outside of us, inside of us. It is like eating, being nurtured, or educated. In each case, the alchemy is one pointing toward the self: it begins beyond our boundaries, and it ends inside of our boundaries.
The second is an act of sending ourselves out in to the world. It is like using our knowledge to make a m

The story goes that Saint Francis would pass through entire nights asking, “Who am I, God?” and “Who are you, God?” There is no record of precisely how he did this. Today’s exercise is just one possible way to go about it, and the notes below the practice give a few suggestions of alterations that are worth considering. Today’s practice is entirely word-based. In that sense it is more on the cataphatic side of the spectrum. Just as centering prayer sometime

Background: Many people find apophatic meditation difficult but rewarding.
Once the basics are under control, it is worth coordinating the breath with this practice. With the affirmation (‘God is Love’) we might inhale as a way to embrace this truth. With the negation, we might exhale (‘God is not love’) as a form of rejecting the limitedness of the affirmation.
When we negate the negation (‘God is not not love) we can try to coordinate this so it equally pos